The legends have been around for as long as there have been assassins.
They begin with Altair, the master assassin, the one that redeveloped the brotherhood and set the path it would take for the many centuries after him. Evie remembers hearing the stories from her father when she was very small—no older than ten, surely—sitting wide eyed and silent beside him while Jacob runs outside with the neighbor boys.
"He had wings?" she'd whispered to him. "Could he really fly, father?"
And her father had nodded and smiled at her, and explained that not everyone believed the legends, but he certainly did. And because he believed, Evie did too. Those have always been her favorite stories, the best out of all the impossible legends that have come out of the brother hood in nearly a thousand years. She pores over ancient scrolls and writings as she grows up, learning everything she can. References to flight, to the great assassins of old with wings on their backs, are rare. But Evie's heart leaps every time she comes across a hint that it might be true, she memorizes the names of those said to have wings. These are the best and the brightest in assassin history.
And one day, Evie knows she will be one of them. She's going to be a master assassin, no matter what it takes. As she and Jacob move into their teens, she's the one that spends all day learning what Father has to teach, she's the one that runs drills over and over again until she has them down by heart, she's the one that really believes in what they're doing.
Jacob is good, he knows how to fight, but he just doesn't care. Evie will admit—grudgingly, when her brother's not around—that he's generally a decent person. He'll defend innocents and protect the brotherhood, just like the creed says (although he does have problems with keeping out of sight). He'll make a fine assassin. But Evie wants to be better than fine.
Their father dies before either twin makes their first kill, and then suddenly everything changes. The twins are sent out after their first targets, they make the impulsive and probably foolish decision to take the train to London. Evie is as eager as Jacob to reach the city and face the templars that have held it in their iron grip for so long. But where Jacob is clearly thinking of the thrill of it all, Evie is hungry for a way to prove herself. She needs to prove to the world that she is worthy of the wings she knows she will one day have.
Time passes, and Starrick's templars begin to fall. Evie buries herself in the same research that had consumed her in Crawley, and dreams of her wings. She finds a friend and ally in Henry Green, the only assassin left in London and a man she happens to—well, she likes him rather a lot.
It is Henry—Mr. Green—that comes to her late one night with an unusually grim face. By this point, it is not unusual for him to stay the night on the train. Jacob's Rooks do it all the time so there are no raised eyebrows the way there might have been in other circumstances, and anyway Evie and Henry have fallen into the habit of long, deep conversations that last half the night. It would be foolish to make him go all the way home by the time they wrap up, typically well after midnight and clear on the other side of the city.
But tonight when he knocks on her door, Evie knows at once that something is wrong. "It's your brother," he says, and something in Evie twists in fear.
"Is he hurt?" she asks, already on her feet. "What did he do?"
"He's… ill," Henry says, and Evie hears the hesitation but she doesn't really process it because she's already pushing past Henry to get to Jacob.
Her brother is curled up on his usual sofa, face tucked into his chest and his eyes closed. He might be asleep, but Evie thinks it's more likely that he's unconscious. When she gets close she can actually feel heat radiating from him, and there's no way that's normal, there's no way…
It's a long, hard night. Evie is not a doctor, she's not a nurse. She sends one of the Rooks off looking for one, but they both know it will likely be too late for Jacob by the time help comes. He's shivering violently despite the fever eating him alive, and his breath is fast and shallow. When Evie puts her hand on his back, she feels something move under the skin. Evie has never seen an illness quite like this, she's never even heard of one.
Henry stays by her side, helping her as much as he can (he's obviously never seen anything like this either), and eventually between the two of them they manage to get Jacob's coat and shirt off, and then…
"Oh," Evie says quietly. She is kneeling by Jacob's side, and her hands go hesitantly up to touch the little nubs just beginning to poke their way out of his back, just below the shoulder. They're soft, like feathers, but Jacob flinches away and shudders horribly when she brushes against them, so Evie pulls away.
"Wings?" Henry says. He sounds puzzled, and when he looks over at Evie, she can see they're both thinking the same thing. It should have been her.
"Wings," Evie agrees softly. Then she takes a deep breath and goes on. There are other things to concern herself with at the moment—she can worry about why Jacob is growing wings later. Why he's going to be able to fly soon, why he's leaving Evie behind on the ground when this is what she's always wanted, more than anything.
No. No, she can't think about that now.
"Everybody out," she says, raising her voice a little. "No one is to enter the compartment apart from Mr. Green and I until we tell you otherwise." Her gaze sweeps across the handful of Rooks bunched together, all of them looking confused and concerned.
"But what about the doctor?" one of them asks.
"Send him home again," Evie says. "He won't be able to help."
By the looks they give her as they start to shuffle out, they don't believe her. But they do go, and Evie turns back to Henry.
"Are you sure that was wise?" he asks her.
"No," Evie says. "But the old writings all say the same thing—a period of sickness, as the wings come out, and then recovery. No one has ever died from this."
"Or maybe the ones that die never get written about in the scrolls," Henry says.
"Please don't," Evie whispers. She closes her eyes and tries not to listen to the labored gasp of Jacob's breathing. "Don't make me doubt my decision right now. I need your help."
He squeezes her elbow, an unexpectedly familiar gesture that she appreciates more than she should. "We should move him," Henry says. "He might need more room to stretch his wings when they come out."
The night is long and difficult for all of them. Jacob doesn't wake as they move him off the sofa and onto the floor, but he groans aloud, crying out in pain at the slightest touch, and somehow that is even worse. After that there is nothing they can do but try to keep his fever down, but Jacob is so hot to the touch that it feels like he's on fire, and the whole exercise has the feel of fighting a losing battle. And all the time, Jacob's wings are forcing themselves out of his back. Evie watches their progress all the time, even while she's doing what she can to help Jacob through the night.
They're beautiful. Deep and dark, black as night, glossy and smooth when Evie dares to reach out a hand and touch them. A rook's wings, and Evie thinks that Jacob will be overjoyed when he wakes and sees them. His back bleeds where the wings have broken through the skin, but not so badly that Evie worries. Much. He's bled more than this before. Little rivers of blood run from the fresh openings on his back, dripping onto his wings and trickling across the feathers. Even tainted with the blood, Evie thinks her brother's wings are the most magnificent thing she has ever seen.
The night goes on and on and on, apparently endless. Eventually Evie ends up leaning against Jacob's sofa, head lolling back on the cushions, hair loose around her shoulders. It had fallen out of her careful braids hours ago, and Evie had chosen to let it fall where it wants instead of taking the time to do it up again. One hand curls tightly around Jacob's, fingers twisted oddly so she can feel his pulse beating faintly. It's the most contact he's allowed her all night, and at this point Evie knows it's probably offering her more comfort than Jacob. She's too tired to care. Henry rests at her side, fast asleep, head falling sideways against her shoulder. It's not something she can muster the energy to protest just at the moment. Maybe she doesn't want to.
"Evie…?"
She shakes her head and jerks forward, knocking Henry to one side as she leans toward Jacob. His eyes are open, his voice hoarse. And there is so much pain and fear on his face that for a moment Evie can't think of anything but holding him. He's struggling to sit up, panic washing across his face as his body fails to respond in quite the way he's used to. Evie scoots closer and helps him, offering a shoulder for Jacob to brace himself against as he heaves himself up. When she turns and hugs him (awkwardly around the bulky shape of his wings), he cries out in sharp pain, and makes a feeble effort to push her away. "It hurts," he says, and Evie has never heard him sound so broken. "Evie, it hurts…"
"It's okay," Evie says. She pulls back a little, away from his wings and his split open back. But he won't let her let go of his hand. "Jacob, you grew wings."
"I what?" He tightens his grip on her hand and twists around as best he can, so abruptly that his face bashes against one wing. He makes a noise like a whimper and flinches back. "Evie—"
"It's okay," she says. "This is a good thing."
"It's not," Jacob insists, his voice rising. It goes high, and in that moment he sounds the same as he had in childhood. "I never asked for this, I don't want this, I don't—" He wrenches his hand away from hers in a sudden, sharp movement. His whole body curls up, face buried in his hands, shoulders hunched, wings dropping around his body like a curtain drawing closed. "Just go away," he says.
"Jacob—"
"Go away!" he shouts, and Henry gently tugs Evie to her feet and out of the carriage.
-/-
No one sees Jacob leave the train. He's simply gone, leaving only a trail of blood and loose feathers behind him. And no one sees him in London—Evie spends close to a month on his trail, and hears not so much as a whisper of a man with wings, a man that can fly. Maybe Jacob is finally learning to go unseen.
Maybe he's dead.
She tries not to think of it. Jacob's absence and her distraction are making the templars bold. They take advantage of the sudden opportunity that Jacob's vanishing creates, organizing raids, hitting both the Rooks and the assassins where it hurts. Eventually, Henry convinces Evie that there's nothing she can do for Jacob if he doesn't want to be found. They turn their attention back to liberating London. Evie struggles with the Rooks, because they know Jacob and trust Jacob but she is just his sister and as far as they're concerned she has driven him away. Eventually, hard works and sleepless nights and some very good luck win her their loyalty. But by then the templars are strong again, and Evie loses quite a few of her newly won over Rooks as they work their way up the ladder of power toward Starrick.
And then finally he is the only templar left. Henry is out of the picture, his leg broken in a nasty fall (he'd been on a field mission—he hates those, she knows he hates those, but with Jacob gone there's no one else she can trust to do what needs to be done), and she'd sent him to George in Crawley until he's healed up again.
So the fight will be just her and Starrick. It's too much to ask the Rooks to help here, so it will be the two of them. The last assassin and the last templar in London.
The night after she kills Roth—the last threat left before Starrick—Evie climbs up the tallest building she can find, and sits on the edge with her legs dangling over the void, face tilted upward to watch the sky. She's thinking of Jacob, imagining him in flight, pretending that being here somehow brings her closer to him. And she's thinking of Starrick, and all the people he's lost over the past year. Evie wonders if he feels as lonely tonight as she does.
There are no footsteps to warn Evie that she's no longer alone, just an unfamiliar swooshing noise and then suddenly Jacob is next to her, sitting at her side as if nothing is wrong and nothing has changed. He's bare chested, and the hat he'd been so proud of is gone. And maybe he looks a little thinner but then so does Evie these days. "Jacob?" Evie asks. She can barely bring herself to believe he's here, that he's real.
"Evie," he says, and his voice is almost the same, light and joking as it ever was. But Evie has known him their whole lives, and she hears the pain underneath the smile. He hugs her tight and Evie leans toward him. She's too shocked to do anything else, too numb by months of struggle without him to even speak. He's warm against her, and that more than anything convinces Evie he's real.
"It's okay," Jacob says when she doesn't hug him back. "You can touch me. It doesn't hurt anymore."
And Evie does hug him, because he's her brother and she's missed him, but when she speaks her voice is angry. "Where have you been?" she demands. "I've missed you. I've been so worried—" she thinks about hitting him, then worries he'd fall, then thinks no, that's stupid, he can fly now. "I needed you and you left."
"Well I couldn't stay, could I?" Jacob says. "I'm not… I don't really fit in anymore."
"Shut up," Evie mutters into his shoulder. "Shut up, you're stupid."
Jacob barks a laugh and she doesn't have to look at him to know he's smiling. "Sorry," he says. "But it's true, you know it is."
"You're an assassin," Evie says firmly. "You have wings, Jacob! Do you know what kind of company that puts you in?"
"Oh, sure," Jacob says dismissively. "Altair. That Ezio guy. A bunch of boring dead assassins. I don't want to be some symbol, Evie, I just want to be me. You think they had any friends? You think they could go down the street for a drink, or have a carriage race, or do anything fun?"
"You could," Evie says. "Wings or no wings, you could do whatever you want."
"But—"
"So wear a coat," Evie says. "It'll look a little funny, who cares? You've always looked a little funny. The Rooks would love you having wings, they'd think it's fantastic. They still ask me all the time if you're coming back, I can't lead them the way you can."
Before Jacob left, the admission that there are things he can do better than she can would have been painful for Evie. Now she knows it's true, and she knows it doesn't matter. The same way the wings don't matter, the same way nothing matters except bringing her brother home with her again.
"Would they really?" Jacob asks, after a long pause.
"You'd never have to buy your own drink again," Evie promises. "Jacob, you've never cared what people think about you. I know this is a little bigger than a bad haircut or that ugly mustache you grew last year—" He gives a little snort of laughter at the memory, and Evie catches herself grinning too. "But I would never have guessed you'd let them stop you from doing whatever you wanted."
"I thought…" The laughter fades from his voice as it goes careful and quiet. "I thought you would care. Because you've wanted wings forever, and I got them instead."
"I did care," Evie says. "A little. But I want you more than I want wings."
He thinks about it for a long time, serious and sad in a way he'd never been before the wings. Finally, he says, "I learned some stuff while I was on my own. Learned being reckless and stupid doesn't always work, especially when you look the way I do."
Evie has been telling him this for years, but politely doesn't point this out.
"I learned…" he looks away. "Learned there's a lot of stuff you can do that I'm awful at."
"Same here," Evie says.
"Yea," Jacob says. "But you were liberating London. I was in a gutter trying to survive."
He has to come home, Evie realizes, he has to. She won't let Jacob go back to the gutter…
"I watched what you were doing, you know," he tells her. "Starrick's men—"
"And women."
"And women. Dropping one at a time. You've done really well, Evie. Way better than I would have alone."
"But not as well as I would have done if we were together." She inches closer to him, close enough that his wings brush against her shoulder. "There's just Starrick left," she says. "Come home with me, Jacob. We can take him out together and then figure out what to do after that."
He opens his mouth. Closes it again. For a second she really thinks he'll say yes, but then he shakes his head. "Sorry, Evie," he says.
"Jacob—"
"I've never been any good at doing the smart thing."
"Jacob!" Evie screams but it's too late, he's spread his arms and jumped from the roof. It's far too high up for a leap of faith to matter, and Evie clings to the roof, straining first her regular sight and then her eagle vision to track him as he falls. Her heart is in her mouth when his wings finally snap out behind him, slowing his fall and carrying him away.
Away from her.
Evie climbs down far more slowly, and her heart is so heavy she's surprised it doesn't make her fall.
-/-
But Jacob or no Jacob, Starrick still has to die. Evie hears rumors of him and a week later tracks him and the shroud to a party thrown by the Queen. Getting there alone is difficult, sneaking weapons and her robes in, even more so. There's a frightening moment when Starrick approaches her and Evie thinks he's about to ask her to dance—she doesn't think she could stand the feel of his arms around her or the sound of his voice in her ear.
He takes a look at her. Sees the danger in her eyes, maybe, and hesitates. Evie sweeps away from him before he can gather his courage again. Let him come, she thinks viciously. She'll kill him here and now, in front of the Queen and her guests and dozens of guards. What does it matter, anyway?
But Starrick doesn't come after her, and Evie is distracted by the sight of snipers on the rooftop, and by the time she's managed to take care of them he's vanished altogether. Evie changes out of her party clothes and follows his trail, and comes at last to the place near the palace where the shroud is hidden.
And this is where she almost dies. The shroud gives Starrick more power than she can overcome alone, and Evie is so, so alone. The light from the artifact batters her over and over until all she can see is light and all she can feel is pain and all she can hear is Starrick ranting and raving above her.
And all she knows is that she's going to die.
It's pure luck that Evie happens to be facing the entrance as Starrick approaches her, weapon drawn, face twisted into a horrifying mask of hatred and joy all twisted together. She's looking past him, because she already knows she's going to die and what good will seeing the final blow do her?
And that's when he comes. Jacob. Jacob comes for her, flying across the room, hidden blade outstretched. He moves with terrifying speed, faster than Evie had ever imagined he would be able to move, and his face is death itself, promising a quick and painful end to the man that had dared to hurt his brotherhood, his city, his sister. For the first time, Evie fully and completely understands why these wings have been such a lasting and powerful image of the assassins. She understands the terror those assassins of old must have brought on their enemies, and she knows Jacob will bring the same to Starrick. Jacob lands on Starrick, knocking him to the ground and burying his blade in the man's shoulder.
No, but Evie has tried that, it doesn't work—she's bleeding and broken but still she manages to crawl across the ground and tear the shroud from Starrick's shoulder. She throws it as far away as she can manage, and Starrick screams in pain as his injuries start to finally take their toll.
Evie shudders as the light goes out of his eyes, and sags sideways against Jacob. She closes her own eyes.
"Thought you weren't coming," she says. Talking hurts. Everything hurts. Starrick had really come close to killing her. Evie's not entirely sure that her injuries won't just finish her off anyway.
"Couldn't stay away," he says, and he's trying to laugh but it isn't working. "Heard you were going to do something stupid and I thought well, that's not fair, that's my job."
"Mmm…"
"Evie?" He shakes her shoulder hard. "Evie, keep your eyes open—"
But that's so much effort, and anyway the fight is over, it's all done…
Her eyes close and everything goes sort of dark and blurry for a while. But Evie is still aware of Jacob's arms around her, lifting her, carrying her away. And she's not sure, she doesn't even know if it's possible, but for a while it feels like they're flying.
When Evie opens her eyes again, she's back on the train and Henry is at her side. He looks pale and drawn, but at least he smiles at her when she looks at him. "You—" Her mouth is dry. She coughs and Henry helps her sit up, hands her a glass of water. She tries again. "You're supposed to be in Crawley."
"Jacob came to find me," Henry says.
Evie's heart almost stops. "Jacob?" she repeats.
"Yep." She twists around and beams when she sees Jacob leaning against the doorway. He looks nervous, and his wings are stiff behind him. But he tries to smile at her. "You should have seen old Georgie's face when he saw me. I thought he was going to drop dead of a heart attack."
"So did I," Henry admits in a low voice, and they both laugh.
Evie doesn't. "You're staying, aren't you?" she asks. "You have to stay, Jacob."
"Well, I can't exactly leave," he says. "You almost got yourself killed without me." He grins, although it's nothing but a shadow of his old cocky smile. "I always knew you couldn't get along without me, Evie."
It's true. Evie knows now that she needs her brother. She needs him around, just to be there for her, just to be Jacob, wings or not. But she grins back and does her best to tease him too. "Yea, well, what about you?" she says. "You're not looking all that well yourself."
He shakes his head and moves to drop into bed next to her. "I left you on top of that roof and five minutes later I knew I'd made a mistake," he says. "I should have come back earlier, maybe Starrick wouldn't have almost killed you, but…"
"But you came," Evie says firmly. "And you're not leaving."
"No," Jacob agrees. "No, I'm not."
He leans over and hugs her, and suddenly it doesn't matter. Not almost dying, not their long months apart, not the wings. Nothing matters except that Jacob's come back.
"It will be good to have you around again," Henry says when they finish hugging. Jacob is discreetly wiping tears off his face and Evie is politely pretending not to notice.
"Course it will," Jacob says. Then he hugs Henry too (Evie laughs at Henry's squawk of surprise). "Missed you too, Greenie."
"Jacob!" Evie protests, but Henry doesn't seem to mind, he's laughing. And Jacob is smiling, and Evie looks at the pair of them and feels something swelling up in her chest, something warm and bright that she hasn't felt at all in the months since Jacob left.
She feels happy. So happy that for a moment—just a moment—she feels like she could fly.